


eyes full of stars

by ivyrobinson



Category: Anastasia (1997), Anastasia - Flaherty/Ahrens/McNally
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Con Artists, F/M, con artists to lovers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-02
Updated: 2021-02-07
Packaged: 2021-03-13 03:40:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29146806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ivyrobinson/pseuds/ivyrobinson
Summary: Dmitry has a con. Anya wants in.
Relationships: Dimitri | Dmitry/Anya | Anastasia Romanov (Anastasia 1997 & Broadway)
Comments: 27
Kudos: 24





	1. prologue

Anya doesn’t have much belief she’s destined for greater things. Not when her clothes are covered in a thick coating of street dust, the grime under her nails have replaced her skin and her feet ache from the long hours she stands on them. The palm of her hand is calloused and blistered from the handle of the broom. 

But still she knows she can be pretty, if she cleans up. Her hair is one of her greatest assets, it’s pretty and blonde and she keeps it long in case the right price comes along for her to cut it. She’s sold her hair in three different Russian cities, but not for the past two and a half years. It brushes against her waist and she has to braid it to keep it out of her eyes. She takes care of it as it’s one of the few parts of her body she’s been willing to sell for the past ten years she’s been clawing herself out of the gutter. 

She’s petite, which means others- especially certain men and motherly women, are quick to assist her. And it’s easy to slip her hands into a pocket to grab a hold of rubbles and other small valuables that way. It’s a cheap way to make a living, and she feels like a teenager when she’s forced to do it. 

She likes to think she’s grown more sophisticated than that. The broom in her hand and the makeshift bed under the bridge say otherwise. 

Her eyes are a clear blue and what she feels like is her best assert. She could be an aristocrat with these eyes. If Russia still had the nobility. 

Leningrad feels like a last stop. She’s been traveling so long with Paris as the goal that it feels a bit surreal to have made it here. She knows what she needs to leave, to make it to France. She needs more money and exit papers. Knowing what she needs and getting what she needs are entirely different creatures. 

That’s what makes her street sweeping job ideal- the only thing that does. It puts her in the center of everything and allows her to know all the whisperings of the townspeople. The less ideal aspect of it is that the officers mill around, eager with their hands and accidental brushes against her when she works amongst the dawn. 

This life she’s woken up in- and truly she’s woken up in this, she doesn’t remember anything before her teenage years- feels intolerable. But she’s surrounded by hundreds of others living an intolerable life so she clenches her jaw and bears it. 

Anya hears the name Dmitry a lot, it’s not uncommon to hear the name. It is Russia, after all, there’s a dozen men in the marketplace with the same name. Eventually it narrows down to one particular Dmitry and one particular scheme. 

And the moment she hears of it-never directly, of course but some of the people around there are not as discreet as they would like to think, she knows she’s absolutely perfect for it and it’s the way out of Russia and into Paris. 

It’s a waiting game after that, she knows where the auditions are and she waits until they’re over to make herself known. 

There’s two men- one older and one younger, and they’re closing up shop, arranging the chairs after the last of the girls have left. 

“Excuse me,” she says, and she steps forward into the stream of light coming in through the broken window. Both men’s gaze snap over to her. “I hear you’re looking for an Anastasia to bring to Paris.”


	2. chapter one

“You?” The younger of the men is in full skeptical mode for a man who just had three sex workers leave the theater when the only thing they had in common with the so called lost Grand Duchess was their relative age and the fact they were female. 

“Hold on!” The older man holds a hand up to step in front of his friend to peer at Anya. “She has the right eyes. The right hair color.” 

It’s not the worst gaze upon her as they scrutinize her appearance, and she tries not to fidget under it. Instead she tilts her chin up, as a Royal would. 

The younger- she assumes this is the Dmitry they talk of. The older man may have been handsome once but he would no longer make people of all ages sigh when they speak his name. Dmitry's gaze is dismissive towards her. 

“She looks like a feral cat!” 

Anya takes a step forward and hisses at him. Not her proudest moment but she certainly feels rankled like a street cat. 

“You’re crazy,” Dmitry tells her. 

She meets his eyes dead on, or the best version she can when he has nearly a foot of height on her. “And you’re desperate.” 

The older man lets out a loud laugh and slaps Dmitry on the back of his shoulder, “I like her. She certainly has the spirit of the youngest Grand Duchess.”

Dmitry rolls his eyes, but steps down- figuratively and literally steps away. “How can you tell under all that dirt?”

“I’m a street sweeper,” she tells them. “The girls you were trying out before exchange their bodies for rubles from the officers, how do you know they won’t sell you out as well?”

He throws an arm up, “What’s your name?” 

“Anya,” it’s as good a name as any, at least. She’s been Mariska, Petra, Larisa. Different names in different regions of Russia. She’s been everywhere and been everyone. 

He arches an eyebrow at that, dubious of the truth of her name. She doesn’t know her actual first name, it’s as much a lie as it is true. “And your last name?” 

“Of no concern to you,” she deflects. “You’re Dmitry.” 

His eyes narrow, not liking he had his name before she had entered. 

The older gentleman steps forward, hand stretched out, “Count Vlad Popov.” 

And Dmitry had thought Anya’s name to be fake. She shakes Vlad’s hand. “You’re looking for someone to be Anastasia and going to Paris to try your luck at the reward from the dowager Empress.”

“And what makes you think you’re the rat for it?” Dmitry asks, appraising her. 

It’s a childish impulse to stick her tongue out at him, and it causes Vlad to chuckle in delight. 

Anya then twirls around, sinking into a deep curtsy that comes from deep within her bones. She’s a natural study, she thinks. 

“She’s a natural!” Vlad agrees, still far more enthusiastic than his partner. 

“I can bow too,” Dmitry grumbles. “I’ve done it once before.” 

“By all means,” Anya gestures to him. “Let’s present you to Maria Feodorovna as the Grand Duchess Anastasia.” 

“I’m too pretty,” Dmitry throws back to her. “It won’t work.” He shoves a couple crumpled pieces of parchment to her. “Read these.” 

Anya scans them quickly and shoves them back at him. “This is the worst play I’ve ever read. The dowager will see this bullshit a _verst_ away.”

Dmitry sighs, and sits back in his chair arrogantly. “How would you do it?”

Anya looks around the theater, letting the atmosphere of the old theater build around her. It comes back to her like a dream. She feels dizzy- a bit tipsy. There are men and women twirling all around her. 

“I’ve been in this room before!” She exclaims and she feels it twisting in her chest. Sometimes her lies are so good she can believe her imagination. “Everyone was dressed beautifully.” She herself wears a pink dress. Or so she imagines the Anastasia version of herself. She can see the ends of the blue ribbon in her hand. She flutters a hand to her chest. “Everyone was drinking champagne and I took a s-“

“Okay,” Dmitry interrupts her, snapping her back to reality, speaking slowly and staring at her with a curious expression. “So tell me what do you know about Anastasia?” 

Anya smiles, despite the fact that these things work best solo. It’s too dangerous, too messy to work with others in these schemes to get involved with others. Men were arrogant and other women were desperate. She likes to lay out a clear plan and expectations first. 

“Let’s talk about the reward money first,” she tells them and Vlad pulls up a chair for her to sit in. 

-

In Perm, a general had fallen in love with her and she’d taken off with his medals in her coat pocket, tucked next to something even more valuable and she’d fenced them to another soldier in exchange for money. Anya’s body is a map of scars from before her memory begins and long after it has developed. 

She should be dead several times over, but that was true of any Russian these days. Or any days, thinking back on the long history of struggles they’ve all had. 

What she learns amongst Vlad and Dmitry is the other side of that. The charmed life of the youngest princess, who spent a childhood before capture amongst siblings and horses and cherished Grandmama’s. 

“I don’t care for stroganoff,” Anya sniffs, pushing the plate away. It’s an act, everything is. The stroganoff in this scenario isn’t even stroganoff, but rather some watered down borscht. “Or tea. Just hot water and lemon.” 

“You’re wealthy and spoiled but down to earth but also feisty,” Vlad instructs her, unhelpfully. 

“A paragon of womanhood,” Anya rolls her eyes. “How do you know so much about Anastasia? And do you think she’s so frozen in time she’s not changed in the past ten years since her death?”

The decomposition alone would’ve changed Anastasia immensely, she thinks rather darkly. 

The last revolution had changed all of them. She wonders if she had a memory before that or if she’s always had this ailment. 

She thinks not, as she can remember the years since. 

“Some things remain the same no matter what,” Vlad insists. “Dmitry will always be stubborn, I’ll always prefer the finer things of life and Anastasia will always hate stroganoff and tea.”

“Anastasia’s clearly never gone hungry in her life,” Anya grumbles and takes a spoonful of the borscht and steps on Dmitry’s foot when he tries to pull the bowl away. She’d attack him with claws, if she had any. 

Instead, she takes a breath and continues to eat. Emotions have no place in a scheme, even the negative ones. 

“I knew her when she was young,” Vlad answers her earlier question, opening to a spot in the photo book. “When I was at court. She charmed and frustrated everyone she came across.” 

“You got that half down,” Dmitry says, and jumps up before she’s tempted to react. 

“What is the best catch you got at court?” Anya asks Vlad. 

He’a slightly charming in his enthusiasm for the past glory. 

“A diamond ring,” Vlad signs. “It was beautiful. It fed and housed me for nearly a year.” 

Back when beautiful things were worthwhile. Now it’s exchanging valuables for basics like food. The only Russians worth anything now were the soldiers and they dealt more with power than money. 

Anya’s danced close to the fire before, but it’s too close to the flame in Leningrad. She hopes to stay underground until they’re safely out of Russia. 

Her heart races with the anticipation of how near freedom she finally is after a decade of traveling towards a vague destination. 

She can’t think about the real reason for going to Paris. Can't lose sight of the short term goal. Anya likes to only think about attainable goals and not the potential disappointment that awaits her in Paris. 

No one has recognized or sought her out in the past ten years in Russia. She doesn’t know why her heart feels it’ll be any different in Paris. 

Anything seems like a dream compared to Russia’s current state. 

The only Russia she knows. 

“Diamonds can get you very far,” Anya agrees, clenching her hand in a fist to keep her hand from wrapping around the one hidden in her pocket. 

And she doesn’t think about the reason why she hasn’t used it yet.


End file.
